The present invention relates generally to cooling systems, and, more specifically, to hermetically sealed cooling systems with pump driven coolant therein.
Personal computers include a main circuit board, or mother board, having a central processing unit (CPU) in the form of a microprocessor chip. As these main processing chips increase in complexity and processing speed, they generate more and more heat during operation. This heat must be suitably dissipated to protect the processor from thermal damage.
Heat dissipation is typically provided in personal and laptop computers by introducing an air fan inside the computer cabinet for circulating ambient air over the processor for removing heat therefrom by convection. The processor may include radiator fins for increasing the available surface area from which heat may be withdrawn from the processor.
Air cooling of processor chips has been effective for low power computers having limited heat dissipation requirements. However, as the processors improve in capability the corresponding heat dissipation requirements therefor also increase. About 5 watts of heat energy is typical in a low power computer chip, with heat dissipation up to about 150 watts being required for high power computer chips being developed. And, kilowatts of cooling are required for multiprocessor computer servers using many chips.
In view of the critical use often found in computer systems, reliability of the entire system is a paramount design objective. Not only must the computer itself operate without failure, but the cooling system therefor must also operate without failure for a suitably long useful life. Since cooling fans have rotating components, they are subject to wear which can lead to fan failure. High reliability fans are typically more expensive than low reliability fans and affect the overall cost of the computer and its competitiveness.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide an improved cooling system for a computer having a hermetically sealed fluid pump therein.